FORE:

FORE:He found a cable with exploring hands.Alberoni despatched Don Joseph Pati?o to Barcelona to hasten the military preparations. Twelve ships of war and eight thousand six hundred men were speedily assembled there, and an instant alarm was excited throughout Europe as to the destination of this not very formidable force. The Emperor, whose treacherous conduct justly rendered him suspicious, imagined the blow destined for his Italian territories; the English anticipated a fresh movement in favour of the Pretender; but Alberoni, an astute Italian, who was on the point of receiving the cardinal's hat from the Pope led Charles (VI.) to believe that the armament was directed against the Infidels in the Levant. The Pope, therefore, hastened the favour of the Roman purple, and then Alberoni no longer concealed the real destination of his troops. The Marquis de Lede was ordered to set out with the squadron for the Italian shores; but when Naples was trembling in apprehension of a visit, the fleet drew up, on the 20th of August, in the bay of Cagliari, the capital of the island of Sardinia. That a force which might have taken Naples should content itself with an attack on the barren, rocky, and swampy Sardinia, surprised many; but Alberoni knew very well that, though he could take, he had not yet an army sufficient to hold Naples, and he was satisfied to strike a blow which should alarm Europe, whilst it gratified the impatience of the Spanish monarch for revenge. There was, moreover, an ulterior object. It had lately been proposed by England and Holland to the Emperor, in order to induce him[40] to come into the Triple Alliance and convert it into a quadruple one, to obtain an exchange of this island for Sicily with the Duke of Savoy. It was, therefore, an object to prevent this arrangement by first seizing Sardinia. The Spanish general summoned the governor of Cagliari to surrender; but he stood out, and the Spaniards had to wait for the complete arrival of their ships before they could land and invest the place. The governor was ere long compelled to capitulate; but the Aragonese and the Catalans, who had followed the Austrians from the embittered contest in their own country, defended the island with furious tenacity, and it was not till November, and after severe losses through fighting and malaria, that the Spaniards made themselves masters of the island. The Powers of the Triple Alliance then intervened with the proposal that Austria should renounce all claim on the Spanish monarchy, and Spain all claim on Italy. Enraged at this proposal, Alberoni embarked on extensive military preparations, and put in practice the most extensive diplomatic schemes to paralyse his enemies abroad. He won the goodwill of Victor Amadeus by holding out the promise of the Milanese in exchange for Sicily; he encouraged the Turks to continue the war against the Emperor, and entered into negotiations with Ragotsky to renew the insurrection in Hungary; he adopted the views of Gortz for uniting the Czar and Charles of Sweden in peace, so that he might be able to turn their united power against the Emperor, and still more against the Electorate of Hanover, thus diverting the attention and the energies of George of England. Still further to occupy England, which he dreaded more than all the rest, he opened a direct correspondence with the Pretender, who was now driven across the Alps by the Triple Alliance, and promised him aid in a new expedition against Britain under the direction of the Duke of Ormonde, or of James himself. In France the same skilful pressure was directed against all the tender places of the body politic. He endeavoured to rouse anew the insurrection of the Cevennes and the discontents of Brittany. The Jesuits, the Protestants, the Duke and Duchess of Maine, were all called into action, and the demands for the assembling of the States-General, for the instant reformation of abuses, for reduction of the national debts, and for other reforms, were the cries by which the Government was attempted to be embarrassed.

FORE:

FORE:One of the series of four Paintings entitled "The Election," by W. Hogarth.

FORE:In sculpture at this period we stood much lower than in painting. Here we had no Hogarth, nor even a Thornhill. All that was of any value in this art proceeded from the chisels of foreigners, and even in that what an immense distance from the grand simplicity of the ancients! The sculpture of Italy and France was in the ascendant, but Bernini and Roubiliac had little in common with Phidias and Praxiteles, and our own sculptors presented a melancholy contrast to the work of artists of the worst age of Greece or Rome; there is scarcely a name that is worth mentioning. The best of the native sculptors was John[164] Bushnell, who was employed by Wren to execute the statues of the kings at Temple Bar; and Francis Bird, who was also employed later by Wren to execute "The Conversion of St. Paul," in the pediment of the new cathedral, the bas-reliefs under the portico, and the group in front, all of a very ordinary character. His best work is the monument of Dr. Busby in the transept of Westminster Abbey. Besides this he executed the monument of Sir Cloudesley Shovel, also at Westminster, and the bronze statue of Henry VI., in the quadrangle of Eton College, both very indifferent. Gibbs and Bird executed the ponderous and tasteless monument of Holles, Duke of Newcastle, at Westminster, and the fine old minster is disgraced by a crowd of still more contemptible productions of this period. These can only be equalled in wretchedness by the works of a trading school, who supplied copies in lead of ancient gods, goddesses, shepherds, shepherdesses, etc., for the gardens of the nobility, which soon swarmed in legions in all the gardens and areas in and around the metropolis. Amongst the chief dealers in this traffic were Cheere and Charpentier, who employed foreign artists, even, for such images, and it was the fortune of Roubiliac to commence his English career with the former of these traders. The three chief foreigners of this period were Rysbraeck, Scheemakers, and Roubiliac, who were copyists of the French sculptors Coysevox, Bouchardon, and Le Moyne, as these had been of Bernini.

FORE:Landor came trotting over from his quarters, followed by his orderly, and the troops moved off across the flat, toward the river.